


What Are Friends For?

by Tattered_Dreams



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Bookstore AU, Freshers Week, M/M, Minewt friendship - Freeform, Minho appreciation week, Modern AU, best friend annoyances, bookshop au, mostly newt, pre-newtmas - Freeform, this was an accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15984410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tattered_Dreams/pseuds/Tattered_Dreams
Summary: AU. Newt took Minho's shift at the local bookstore. He's regretting it.





	What Are Friends For?

**Author's Note:**

> So this was a spur of the moment thing. My friend had a long day at work and this entire thing just practically wrote itself in a single sitting. Its a tiny bit of fun to kick start something I have been discussing with her and another friend so...enjoy I hope.
> 
> Dreams, thank you for being you. I'm glad this helped when you read the raw form :)

“This is ridiculous,” Newt mutters to himself.

 

He’s careful to keep his voice low, but just the act of letting the words slip out leaves him feeling slightly less like he’ll mortally stab the next fresher to step within three feet of him. Its an outlet. It’s the only one available to him right now and he’s going to use it.

 

It’s the only one available because _someone_ stopped answering their phone as of two hours ago and Newt is...well. He’s decidedly going out of his mind, frankly.

 

When he said he’d take Minho’s shift at the bookstore, it was on the strict agreement that Minho was to entertain him via whatsapp for the entire six hour stint. He lasted just short of two and has been AWOL ever since. Newt has been forced to endure the start of term book mania from the hoards of freshers entirely alone.

 

He gave up sending Minho increasingly frustrated emojis over three hours ago. He just has to struggle through a little more than an hour of this and then he can leave. And he’s never taking Minho’s shift. Ever again. Actually he might just gut Minho with the box cutter he found under the till desk.

 

“How much is this one?”

 

Newt jumps at the interruption. His head pounding with the kind of headache that starts battering your brain after being surrounded by far too much noise for far too long. He grimaces, trying as hard as he can to contort his expression into something that might pass for approachable as he wheels on the origin of the voice.

 

The person stood there is huge. Tall, more than anything, probably breaking six feet, wearing a deeply hassled look. He’s balancing three books just on one hand, his bicep taut under the edge of his sleeve with the weight, but he’s holding out a fourth one.

 

Honestly. Its like he expects Newt to know or something.

 

“It’s on the back,” Newt tells him.

 

Would Minho get the blame if Newt unloaded the latest shipment of new books across the desk and built a hardback, leather-bound wall of encyclopaedias between him and the freshers?

 

Probably.

 

Good reason enough to do it then.

 

But the tall boy hasn’t moved.

 

“It’s not there,” he says, sighing apologetically, broad shoulders slumping just a little though the book he’s holding up is steady between his fingers despite its weight. “I’m sorry, Man, I just can’t see it and I wouldn’t bother you but I’m on this budget and-”

 

“Give it here,” Newt groans, reaching out for it.

 

He does not. Have. Time. For this.

 

Minho is also distinctly aware Newt has a thesis he needs to write and hand holding the frantic students through buying their new textbooks isn’t exactly conducive to getting any writing done.

 

He flips the book over, rolls his eyes when he realises somehow it did escape a price label – because of course it did. Why should this day get any easier? - and then digs around under the desk for the scanner. If he has to unlock the back office system and scroll through the database for this one book when the handheld should be- Ah ha. Right there.

 

He finds it shovelled between a bunch of old till receipts and...that might be a pizza box. Newt doesn’t want to know. Clearly Minho was the last to use it but thankfully it has battery. It blips in his hands when he runs it over the barcode and the screen flashes up with reluctant obedience.

 

“Twelve ninety five,” he reads off, setting the book on the till between them.

 

He’s already ducked back under the desk to hide the scanner – better that no one knows they have it. Less time consuming questions for him, more hassle for Minho tomorrow having to look for it. It’s kind of a win-win – when the chime for the door goes yet again.

 

“Bloody hell,” Newt mutters, once more carefully muffled by the dust bunnies and stacks of old inventory documents cluttering up the foot space under the counter.

 

To-Do list: Stack the entire set of encyclopaedia Britannica across the till to build a Great Wall between him and the world, and then also maybe unscrew that damn bell from the door. If there’s time he might replace it with a hammer. He’ll hide the bell with the scanner.

 

He’s not having a good day.

 

Minho still isn’t answering his bugging phone. The constant muffled hum of chatter and gossip is still leaching through the shop, seeping into the walls, dripping down the spines of the books lining the shelves. He’d pick up a loudhailer and tell them all to shut it if he thought it’d make the slightest bit of difference. The other option is sticking a Do Not Disturb post-it to his forehead but he can’t find the post-its. Given how many tiny yellow paper aeroplanes litter his and Minho’s shared flat, sticky residue under their wing-tips, Newt is not surprised the pad is conspicuously absent.

 

“And this is Blacks!”

 

Newt bashes his head on the underside of the desk.

 

What the FUCK is Minho doing _here_?

 

Newt rears back, scurries upright, all set to lay into him – he put that box cutter down just a minute ago, he was careful to keep it in arm’s reach, just on the off chance a murder needed to happen imminently – but then he freezes.

 

Minho is gesturing grandly around the tiny little store, clearly introducing it to the wide-eyed fresher stood at his shoulder.

 

A particular wide-eyed fresher Newt has seen before now and may have possibly perhaps expressed a drunken interest in.

 

He’s never telling Minho anything ever again. Not in his life.

 

Thomas is strange, is the thing. He doesn’t seem to be all that outgoing or loud, but people just…like him. Almost like they can’t help themselves. He just trips over friends everywhere he goes even though he wanders around the city and the campus with a beanie pulled down over his dark hair and a scuffed up bag slung over his shoulder. Sometimes he’s carrying a hockey stick, sometimes he has headphones curled around the back of his neck but he’s always either buried in his phone or in a textbook. He’s freakishly good at navigating pedestrian traffic - and once even crossing a busy road - without looking up once.

 

Lesser men have been hit by cyclists. Or one time the retired grocer in his mobility scooter. But not Thomas.

 

Newt’s never spoken to him.

 

Newt is also about to be arrested for publicly murdering his best friend and attempting to cover it up by burying the body in a veritable mountain of penguin classics.

 

“Minho,” Newt greets him, trying hard not to bite his name. “Thought you were Incredibly Busy until six tonight.”

 

Minho beams at him. What a shank.

 

“I managed to sort it out. Sorry, Newt. But the good news is I’m here to take over. I know you need to get your thesis written.”

 

Newt narrows his eyes. This… feels like an offer too good to be true.

 

Minho is his best friend, always has been, and he can’t see it changing. But right now he trusts him about as far as he could throw the first edition of the Combined World Atlas they’ve been sitting on since sometime in the eighteen hundreds. Its a leather book as thick as two bricks. Newt can’t throw it.

 

That’s when Thomas perks up.

 

His eyes are the strangest colour; brown tinted with honey gold, like sunlight through autumn leaves. “You have to write a thesis?” His voice is wondering, and gentle, curls delicately around the words.

 

Huh. Strange. This rather obvious question doesn’t come with the usual snap of irritation.

 

Minho’s head swivels between them. Its theatrical, but probably only to Newt who knows him too well. He’s a little con artist. Newt’s fingers itch for the box cutter.

 

“Oh, _sorry_ ,” he says. “Newt this is Thomas. Thomas, meet Newt.”

 

Newt rolls his eyes at Minho and then rolls his tongue at the question. He debates answering for all of two seconds before he finds himself nodding, words spilling forwards anyway.

 

“Yeah. I did this as a favour-” he shoots Minho a scowl which Minho cheerfully ignores “-but its really eating into my writing time.”

 

“So go ahead,” Minho says. He springs forwards, now literally wafting at Newt – who does that? - to back him up. “Grab your stuff, I’ve got the rest of the shift.”

 

“Uhm-” Thomas half says.

 

Minho stops moving, hands mid-waft. There’s a wickedly sharp glint in his eyes that Newt knows usually means he’s up to something. That glint only works out well for him forty three point seven percent of the time.

 

Thomas looks slightly uncertain, eyes drifting from Minho to Newt, but there’s something earnest and guileless about him that’s instantly disarming. He bites his lip and a flush colours his skin. Its prettier than it has any right to be. Newt swallows hard. Minho is beaming again.

 

“Well I- okay I know this is random but, I know of a really good cafe like…a three minute walk from here. I always study there. They, like, know me by now. They do amazing food and tea and I was headed over anyway. I just mean. If you wanted. I could...” That’s where he slows right down, deflating as he exhales, apparently realising he was rambling. His tongue rolls over the seam of his mouth and his eyes dart away from Minho to Newt again as he finishes off with a cautious but warm, “I could show you where it is?”

 

Newt blinks. His heart skips (just a little).

 

“Is there a bell on the door?”

 

He’ll wonder, later, why this is the first question he saw fit to ask. But it doesn’t really matter because Thomas’ face lights up, a smile curling into his mouth even as he blinks, eyes ducking down.

 

“No,” he says, gaze returning, soft and amused. “No bell. It’s really quiet.”

 

The pounding of the headache that’s been building for the past four hours in Newt’s head blinks and dies and the sharp snapping sensation of aggravation in his nerves melts away. Delicate hopefulness spills through his bloodstream instead. Quiet is exactly what he wants. He might not even mind sharing that quiet with this particular person.

 

Newt ducks back under the desk and grabs up his bag, throwing the strap over his head. He swipes the shop keys from the desk and tosses them to Minho.

 

It would have been nice if they hit him in the face. Maybe if the safe key got lodged up a nostril or something, but no. He catches them, easy and effortless, still beaming like he knows exactly what Newt had hoped for. He’s such a shank.

 

“Well then Tommy, lead the way,” Newt says instead, hauling open the door.

 

The bell rings through the shop, shrill and awful but Newt ignores it as Thomas smiles quietly, bashfully, slipping past him and back out into the sunlight. Newt sways in his wake and follows without a backward glance. And if he slams the door a little hard behind him...well that’s his business. It makes Thomas laugh, a hastily muffled sound and Newt’s heart twists.

 

Minho isn’t being dismembered and honestly, he should be grateful for that. He can put up with the shucking bell.

  
  
  
  
  


But then Newt ends up spending hours in the cafe with Thomas until they’re literally kicked out at closing time and Newt thinks maybe Minho’s actually probably potentially the best friend he’s ever had.

 


End file.
